


BBCSH 'Grope-and-Tickle'  [PG-13] for phoenixacid

by tigersilver



Category: BBC Sherlock
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-01
Updated: 2012-03-01
Packaged: 2017-10-31 23:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/349345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigersilver/pseuds/tigersilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-whatever apocalyptic event which has happened recently and has threatened to separate them forever (surely there's always one in the offing, yes?); a moment of gratitude; established relationship, hurt/comfort, cuddling. Unbeta'd. This is for Huey (<a href="http://phoenixacid.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://phoenixacid.livejournal.com/"><b>phoenixacid</b></a> with much love, darling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	BBCSH 'Grope-and-Tickle'  [PG-13] for phoenixacid

Author: [](http://tigersilver.livejournal.com/profile)[**tigersilver**](http://tigersilver.livejournal.com/)  
Pairing: S/J  
Fandom: BBC Sherlock  
Rating: PG-13  
Word Count: 1950  
Warnings/Summary: Post-whatever apocolyptic event which has happened recently and has threatened to separate them forever (surely there's always one in the offing, yes?); a moment of gratitude; established relationship, hurt/comfort, cuddling. Unbeta'd. This is for Huey ([](http://phoenixacid.livejournal.com/profile)[ **phoenixacid**](http://phoenixacid.livejournal.com/) with much love, darling.  


  


BBCSH  ‘Grope-and-Tickle’

“You’re a liar,” John remarks idly to Sherlock’s collarbone. He nips it on impulse and feels the immediate crease of Sherlock’s smug smile against his forehead. “A bloody bald-faced liar.” 

“Only sometimes,” Sherlock replies, his arms tightening round John at both hip (and if his hand felt like it owned John’s hip, that was completely valid) and shoulder-level. Long fingers curled down into John’s flesh like grappling hooks, but not painful—just attached, firmly. “You knew that,” he adds, deadpan as anything, “so, erm…problem?” 

“Wanker.” John grins as well and wriggles deliberately, settling himself more firmly and comfortably into the death grip Sherlock’s got on him. Before them the telly burbles and he can tell Sherlock’s following the pathetic excuse for a plot but not really, either. Sherlock’s actually multitasking (as always) and the main reason he’s on the sofa at all is due to his sudden self-proclaimed dire need for a ‘John-fix’. Sherlock’s a hugger, a cuddler, a complete freak when it comes to human contact. When he wants it, he _wants_ it, and far be it from John to deny him. “You could’ve at least—oh, I dunno. Faked it.“  He huffs, not bothering to finish his whinge; he knows as well as he knows his own last name is Watson that Sherlock Holmes could care less about the dinner tucked away in the coldbox.  “Oh. Well. Idiot.” 

He sighs in mild frustration at his captor, who only grins all the harder and pushes his long agile tongue in an irritatingly fascinating stripe across John’s lined forehead. John’s habitual frown smoothes away like magic for a moment…till Sherlock ruins it by smirking.  John can actually hear him smirking. 

It’s infuriating, really. He frowns. 

“Not at all, John.” Sherlock drops a kiss into John’s ruffled fringe. “I’ll eat it later, I promise.” 

“Huh. Sure you will.” 

“Hm-mhh.” 

There’s a pause between them, a comfortable one, one as cosy- understated as the full body embrace Sherlock’s got John contorted into. It’s a little ridiculous, he supposes, a nearly forty year old man being used as a teddy bear, but that’s alright. It’s fine, really. He doesn’t mind it so much, provided Sherlock’s keen ears continue to provide them warning of any intruders. 

It’s only nine of the evening and folks could still come calling. Crime—and landladies masquerading as sometime housekeepers—never sleep, it seems. Least not in John’s experience. One never knew: a criminal or a victim could come tumbling through the flat door at any moment. 

Intruders up to and including Mrs Hudson and certainly the Yard. Last thing John needs is for Sally Donovan to provide him more _life advice_. Fishing; how inane; as if he would ever. Or relationship advice, especially when she’s a million miles off the mark every time. And Mrs Hudson does twitter—she can’t seem to control it—and then she and Mrs Turner-next-door gossip and John and Sherlock have to put up with curtain-twitching and the creepy feel of interested eyes watching them every time they go in and out of 221B. 

It’s a bother but a minor one really; he won’t dwell. Sherlock will warn them and have them suitably rearranged into non-intimacy in time even if the sod won’t consent to dutifully eat his bloody supper like a reasonable fellow. 

Apparently he’s conveyed that sentiment to Sherlock, telegraphed it though a series of tightening-loosening muscles and the scowl that twitches his lips and then fades away immediately. 

“Of course I will, John,” Sherlock’s chest moves against John’s ribcage in a reassuring honeybee hive-rumble. As if to provide evidence, his stomach growls audibly beneath the cashmere jumper he’s wearing. He’s thin as a stick-insect, still, but under John’s careful eyes he’s been improving. ‘Transport’ like hell, John thinks victoriously. He’ll show Sherlock _transport_. “Just…later.” 

“Hmph.” John sniffs. “Right.”

“Don’t fuss so.” He’s squeezed tight for a brief half-second, so hard he can’t inhale comfortably. “I’m not a fool…dear.” 

“Wh- _whaaat_?!” John jumps and rears back in Sherlock’s lap, his eyes widening. “Go on with you! Don’t call me that, nitwit!” 

“ _Very_ dear, John.”  Sherlock’s hands never leave his body but they do slide into a firm grip on each of John’s upper arms. He allows just enough space between them to face John full-on. 

John braces himself instinctually. He knows what’s coming. 

He’s immediately blinded by an excruciatingly warm smile, one that takes all the muscles and planes of that curiously attractive face and transforms them into charm incarnate. But not just charm—nothing so plebian or shallow: it’s warmth, that’s what. Love.  Smiling at him.

“Git,” John grits, with feeling. He snaps his back teeth together and then pushes his red face forward, eager to avoid the blazing light filling those curiously pale eyes. That look always does funny things to the organs under his sternum. He nuzzles his nose into Sherlock’s neck instead of smiling back at his flatmate, knowing full well the tip of his nose is chilled, even a tad frosty. It’s just on March and the flat’s not that well heated. Besides, the couch is situated near the windows, which are old and draughty.  “Flattery’s not going to excuse you from basic self-care, Sherlock. What, indeed!” 

“What?” Sherlock parrots back, quick as winking. Doesn’t seem to matter his mouth is muffled by a face full of John-hair; John can feel every nuance of that knowing grin even if he can't physically see it. “You _are_ my love, John. You know that, too.” 

“Nrgh.” It’s a wordless grumble, a grunt that acknowledges that yes, John does, _dear_ , but he’s not planning on admitting it. And why should he? It’s just as ridiculous a notion as the one he’s living at the moment, being teddy to an overgrown gawky-elegant groper.  
  
"My dear," Sherlock says, as if that's all John is and will be. Could be that the insane man holding him actually believes it, too.  

John snarls to himself, silently. If Sherlock goes so far as to tickle him, adding injury to insult (in a manner of speaking), he’ll murder him in cold blood. Yes, yes, he will. And likely be acquitted for it, too. Lestrade and his lot would instantly provide him an alibi; Mycroft as well, he's pretty certain. 

“…Come on, then.” A hard fingertip pushes John’s jaw out from the fragrant hollow he’s got his face nestled into. “Give us a kiss, Johnny. You forgive me, you know you do. And I promise I'll eat...later.” 

Sherlock’s cajoling is like a fine sherry lapping across his tastebuds and down his throat; soothing to his troubled, ruffled nerve-endings. John relaxes into the palm cupping his chin; can’t help himself. Can never help himself. He's a push-over of the worst sort. 

Sherlock snogs him, hard and filthy, shockingly so, his tongue swiping deep into John’s half-open mouth, which is as inevitable as the spring showers scattering drops across their flat’s window panes. It’s chemistry;  it’s nature at work. John groans and Sherock echos the sound, through every part of him. 

He allows the indulgence; no—he craves it and for a few long breathless moments his eyes close dreamily and their mouths drift away and then back into steady contact. The kiss softens into something sweet, something shy and John notices Sherlock’s lips are chapped; there’s a corner bit that’s sharp where he’s nearly chewed it off and it catches at the fullness of John’s lower labial plane like a tiny dagger, piercing. He doesn’t mind the vanishingly small twinge; smiles into it and darts his tongue to sooth the drying skin flap. Sherlock is an irritant of the first order, from large to small, from curls to toes, but John’s a forgiving sort of chap and he’ll accommodate all the minor indignities. Always, always and has he not proved that over and over?

“There,” he whispers, after they’ve drawn away just a smidge and he can see Sherlock’s eyes, liquid pewter with odd flecks of hazel glowing, and so full of something glorious John feels transported. Every cell’s alive within him, all at once, and it’s clear Sherlock’s on the same page as he. “Satisfied?” 

“Not nearly.” The eyes are heavy-lidded and the gaze a lambent storm. “…not…nearly,” Sherlock repeats himself slowly, meaningfully, and John huffs a huge breath, feeling all that sizzling electricity hovering re-inflate him. But 'nearly's' not yet and for now Sherlock needs him here. 

“Ten more minutes,” he mutters, diving his nose—now considerably warmer as he’s flushing pink and he knows it—back against Sherlock’s swallowing throat. “Only ten—and don’t dare be forgetting your promise, Sherlock Holmes. It was raining, you know; still _is_ , genius. Buckets and gobs of it, filthy weather, and I—“

“Nearly caught my death,” Sherlock chuckles, his whole frame shaking with it. “Soaked to the bone. Oh, I know, Jo—“ 

For a second the telly blares loud in the flat and there’s a shocked white silence, blanketing the world like a shroud. John flinches; Sherlock starts, his fingertips punishing everywhere they are laid upon John’s person.

Sherlock scrubs both his hands—all ten digits—over every bit of John he can reach (and that's basically all of him accounted for), and hauls him so close against his throbbing core it jars John’s spine. He ( _they_ , though Sherlock doesn’t say it aloud and never would) doesn’t care to play with words that have to do with death's finality; not inconsequentially, _not_ playfully, _not anymore_ , and it’s a grey wasteland that flashes through him at the memory of why that is, precisely. It’s not been so long that they can—he can—joke about it.  He doesn’t think there’s enough time left in the universe's internal clockworks to pass to ever allow for it, actually. 

“No, _sorry_ ,” Sherlock’s immediately got a knobby kneecap bent up  on either side of John's bum and his impossibly long arms and wide hands—more than an octave-width when spread, John swears—are shoving-pushing-grasping John all the harder, drawing him in and in. The kneecap brought into the equation budges him completely off balance, so he tilts in Sherlock’s lap, gasping at the indignity, and Sherlock manages to completely engulf him, somehow. It’s like he’s been folded up inside a Sherlock-origami. Or been squeezed by a python. He can't breathe at all and he doesn't care about that, not in the least. “ _Sorry, John_.” 

“Sher—“ 

“I’m sorry.” It’s a puffed breath in his ear…or where his ear would’ve been able to hear clearly if Sherlock didn’t have him pressed so tightly against his chest John can only really make out the thunderous ‘baa-bloop’ of aortic muscle thumping. Hell, he can make out every rib, every indent between them, every slide of muscle and tendon and slab of excessively thin fat as well. It's like hugging the rest of Sherlock's bloody skull, were the remainder in situ and present. He thanks the powers that be that it's not.  “ _Sorry_ , John.” 

“S’alright.” John murmurs forgiveness as soon as he can manage to say anything at all--that’s almost immediately; breath control is a learnt skill and he's been  suffocated before now, though not nearly as lovingly—and _it is_ , really. It’s alright; both of them forget sometimes and that’s allowable.  It’s only human. It _is_ and he has to close his eyes fully against the knowledge that they are, indeed, both only human, no matter how often he or Sherlock feels themselves to be more or less than that. It's a strong emotion, a riptide of it, sweeping at him, as if to yank him away from the hands of his beloved embracer. His pale blond lashes are so tightly interwebbed against the insidious drag they tangle into moistness and the backs of his lids end up smarting in sparks from the self-induced pressure. It hurts, it pangs; it keeps him centred, and he can't be bothered by it. This is too important to care. “Just—“

“Don’t do it again. I _know_.” 

“No,” he sighs, tense bits loosening, and feels the slither of one large Sherlock-hand creeping down his chest and side to lay spread possessively over his abdomen. It rests there, pregnant with implication; John shudders with recalled pleasure. “No…thanks. Please.” 

Sherlock’s ready nod digs his angular chin into John’s ruffled part and thunks against his sensitive scalp like a pointy rock. A croquet mallet, maybe; they are practically glued, bone to bone. John smiles to the softness of the jersey folds pushing against his  flared nostrils, amused by the fancy, amused by the person surrounding him. Why is it that so much awkwardness can comfortably exist in the skin of one person? How can it be transformed, articulated into a seamless grace? It's a wonder. It's like those African gazelles; it's like racehorses. Impossible, really. But true. Sherlock’s a mystery that way and John does enjoy a good mystery. He's never been this intrigued before, but then...

“You…” John says, seeking some articulate way to wrap all that unspokeness between them up neatly into a tidy verbalized bundle, and then abruptly realizes he doesn’t need to say a jot more than he has, just now. There is no other ‘you’ in John’s current vocabulary and Sherlock knows that, as well as he knows _his_ own name. It’s a world, a compleat cosmos, the 'you', and Sherlock _knows_ , so it’s alright. “You.” 

John sighs and it's exquisite, that, the release. Bliss, the slackening of torqued tension. He's summed it; found the answer to all life's equation. He may never need to utter another word of _any_ sort, actually. Not even a heart-felt complaint or his customary 'Brilliant, Sherlock!' It's all been encapsulated, their lives together distillated, just now, in that single 'you', hasn't it? He's immensely pleased by that, yes. Yes.  
  
Sherlock, though, likes to gab and gab when he's in the mood. 

“Come here,” the voice over his head drawls after another moment of shared deep breathing (happy breathing, like the hum of a late-day hive), and he _is_ already 'here’, so close upon Sherlock the clothing they still wear (why?) is a bloody obnoxious burden to each of them, scraping sensitized skin and making premature wrinkles and indents upon it. “John, _come_.” 

And there’s nowhere to _go_ —thank the lord for that; it’s raining a frigging pet shop out there, pouring down all forty days of it—nowhere to _go_ , precisely, but where they are now, but John…

_John goes_ , deeper into the all-consuming embrace of lanky limb, heart-heat, and beating precious pulse point surrounding him. And knows he’ll be Sherlock’s teddy till the end of time or possibly longer, and that’ll be fine with him. Very much fine. 

  



End file.
